Fri 31 Jul 2020
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: LOVE FROM A STRANGER (1937).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[7] Comments
REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:
LOVE FROM A STRANGER. United Artists, UK/US, 1937. Also released in the US as A Night of Terror. Ann Harding, Basil Rathbone, Binnie Hale, Bruce Seton, Jean Cadell, Bryan Powley, Joan Hickson. Based on the 1936 play of the same name by Frank Vosper, which in turn was based on the 1924 short story “Philomel Cottage,†written by Agatha Christie. Directed by Rowland V. Lee.
Basil Rathbone used to turn out a fine line of cold-hearted seducers. As a cad supposedly irresistible to women, he was never completely convincing, but that, oddly, was part of his success: when the naive young heiress or wealthy widow fell for Rathbone’s icy charm, you just knew she was walking into a trap. They never seemed to learn, though, and a succession of films like Kind Lady (1935), Rio (’39) and The Mad Doctor (’41) found a variety of leading ladies suddenly-finding-too-late (or is it?) they were in the clutches of a serial killer murderous con man, or at best an insanely jealous spouse.
Love from a Stranger is pretty typical of the lot, and fun to look at, with a script incorporating the talents of Agatha Christie (original story) Frank Vosper (stage play) and Francis Marion (screen adaptation.) under the steady hand of Rowland V. Lee. Heroine Anne Harding has barely learned she won the lottery before suave, mysterious Basil Rathbone turns up to sweep her off her feet and into a remote cottage, where he likes to spend hours in the cellar listening to “In the Hall of the Mountain King” on the gramophone while burning pictures of his new bride — a sure sign that this marriage is in trouble. More fruity stuff follows, but it’s played for such full-blooded theatricality as to make it rather enjoyable as the story moves to its predestined climax.
That climax perhaps betrays a bit too much of the film’s stage origins: at the point to which all these things must come, where the heroine ls alone in the house with a killer and no hope of rescue, we suddenly get an awful lot of dialogue. Without revealing too much of the ending, I may say it goes something like this:
RATHBONE: “Well, my dear, something something something.”
HARDING: “No! Wait!”
RATHBONE: “Why should I?”
HARDING: “Because something something something!”
RATHBONE: “Something something?”
HARDING: “Yes! And something else!”
RATHBQNE: “You expect me to believe that?”
HARDING: “Yes!â€
RATHBONE: “But if somethlng something, why not something?”
HARDING: “Because something!”
RATHBONE: ”A very pretty story, my dear, but I happen to know something something.”
HARDING: “I know you knew that. I was only something something until something something else something!”
RATHBONE: “Damn!”
As you may have noticed, this is an awful lot of plot to carry around just by talking it out, and it gets a bit stagy after the first ten minutes or so. Still fun, though, in its own hammy way, and I have to say I liked this a lot.
July 31st, 2020 at 6:09 pm
Rathbone was the model for several of the most romantic male characters of his time, including Rhett Butler, Max de Winter, and the protagonist of FRENCHMAN’S CREEK. Of course in the case of the two du Maurier books Rathbone was her cousin (he was also thriller writer Desmond Bagley’s cousin) and she remembered him as much younger and more dashing than most of his Hollywood roles.
Margaret Mitchell was supposedly a little disappointed she got Clark Gable and not Rathbone as Rhett in the film.
As Dan points out the movie plays a bit like what the Brits used to call a “barn burner,” a melodrama of a sort once actually playing in barns in rural counties with no theaters where the theatrical lights were prone to burning down the barn.
Fruity is a good description, to which I would add full blooded, and despite the notable writing talent a bit stagebound.
July 31st, 2020 at 6:15 pm
No one would buy that story about Margaret Mitchell; the single most dominant male actor of all time, and this guy.
July 31st, 2020 at 8:31 pm
Count me in as someone else who doesn’t see the appeal of Rathbone’s character to women. Kind of a minor mystery to me.
July 31st, 2020 at 10:15 pm
Any bio of Mitchell and many of the documentaries on GWTW mention she was dubious about Gable, and modeled Butler in part on Rathbone, who she thought ideal to play the role.
I assume Mitchell saw Rathbone on the stage before the movies, but there is no accounting for tastes.
Ironically in the film of FRENCHMAN’S CREEK Arturo de Cordova plays the lead and Rathbone is the villain.
July 31st, 2020 at 10:50 pm
I’ve seen that film, why ironic?
July 31st, 2020 at 11:02 pm
Reality in casting. SAG put four four player’s directories. Leading men and Leading Women; Character actors, Men and Women. Not all character actors were in support, think Charles Laughton. Not all leading men were starred, think Donald Woods. A leading man is a type, as is a leading lady. Aturo was always a leading man, I cannot think of Basil being represented in that manner, nor, other than the Holmes pictures, can I think of him at the top of the cast. Or winning the girl. There is a lot of crapola out there shooting down Gable, Grant, and others. Sort of the politics of envy. Think of Dustin Hoffman and Richard Dreyfuss as anomalies.
August 1st, 2020 at 11:59 am
Correction: SAG published four players directories, now I assume they are online rather than hard copies, but perhaps not.